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Entertainment Computer SystemCOMPUTER ADAPTOR #4182 & KEYBOARD #4184 (Sold together as #4187)
Only a few people knew the real purpose behind the BDS. The Federal Trade Commission was starting to look into fraud charges against Mattel for not releasing the Intellivision Keyboard Component. Key people at the top of Mattel Electronics, concerned that Dave "Papa Intellivision" Chandler's engineering group would never make the Keyboard Component cost-effective, started looking for something they could release in its place. Afraid Chandler had the political clout within Mattel, Inc. (the parent company), to kill any effort to develop an alternative to the Keyboard, they had to keep their intentions secret. The Design & Development group was challenged to build a module for the Intellivision that would be inexpensive (under $150 retail) but would fulfill the basic original promises of the Keyboard Component: turn the Intellivision into a computer, make it possible to write programs and store them to tape, and interface with a printer. The design for the module was worked out by Jan Chodak and principally implemented by Greg Goodknight. The simplified BASIC interpreter was mainly programmed Jay Hastroudian. As work on the module progressed, it was officially listed and discussed in memos as an additional product for the Intellivision line, never as a replacement for the Keyboard Component. But the issue was forced when the FTC started fining Mattel monthly until the Keyboard Component was released. Finally, the Basic Discovery System was openly advanced as a possible alternative to the Keyboard. Renamed Lucky (from LUCKI: Low User-Cost Keyboard Interface), it was presented to the programmers to start developing games. A computer-style keyboard, an extra pair of hand controllers (for four-player games) or a music keyboard could be plugged into the Lucky adaptor. (The idea of a music keyboard add-on came from within Design & Development. Musical instruments were pet projects of the group. They had already produced Synsonics Drums, and electronic guitars, basses, and brass/woodwinds were in the works. Other ECS add-ons briefly worked on in D&D: a Biofeedback Module and a Camera Module.) In fall of 1982, at the annual meeting of Mattel's marketing people, sales staff and distributors, Lucky -- the Computer Module, the Computer Keyboard, and the Music Synthesizer -- was presented under its final name: the Entertainment Computer System (ECS). Everyone at the meeting was delighted (mainly by the low retail price) and the obvious became official: the Intellivision Keyboard Component was dead. A pre-Christmas commercial was rushed onto the air with Mattel Electronics spokesman George Plimpton teasing the introduction of the ECS (using the inside joke "[Intellivision owners] won't believe their luck!"). Although the ECS wasn't available for Christmas 1982, the aim of the commercial was to get people to buy Intellivisions instead of Ataris or ColecoVisions with the promise (once again) that a computer add-on was just around the corner. Officially introduced to the public at the January 1983 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, ECS hit the market later that year with a handful of games. Satisfied, the FTC dropped the monthly fine. By the time ECS was released, however, the focus at Mattel Electronics had shifted. After the June 1983 CES in Chicago, Josh Denham and Stav Prodomou, Mattel Electronics' President and Senior Operations VP, resigned. Josh and Stav had been blamed for pushing the company too far into hardware production; hundreds of millions of dollars had been tied up in the development, beyond the original Intellivision, of the Keyboard Component, Intellivoice, Intellivision II, the System Changer, ECS, Aquarius (and peripherals), Intellivision III and the top-secret Intellivision IV. On July 12, 1983, Josh was replaced by Mack Morris, a marketing man famous for putting the blue dot on Breath Savers mints. (The gimmick or hook that set a game apart quickly became known as its "blue dot" around Mattel.) Under Mack Morris, the emphasis was put almost entirely on software (nearly everyone related to hardware development was laid off on August 4, 1983). The ECS received very little marketing push and further game development for it dropped to almost nothing. An announced Program Expander, containing 16K of additional RAM and extra features (including expanded BASIC) in 12K of ROM, was never completed.
For the game designer, the Computer Adaptor essentially adds five components to the Intellivision:
Invisible to the programmer is the SDCC (Super-Duper Custom Chip) that integrates these components and controls bus traffic. The Computer Adaptor also requires its own power supply to supplement that of the Master Component. SOUND CHIP ECS EXEC/BASIC ROM
The default on reset for the ECS is to display a menu selection of game, BASIC, or music. However, the game designer can program his or her cartridge to bypass the ECS menu and go directly to the cartridge's title screen. Even if the menu screen is bypassed, the ECS features are available to the programmer. [No policy on this was defined; it was left to the individual programmer on whether or not to bypass the menu. Pre-ECS Intellivision game cartridges all allow the menu to be displayed; the ECS games Mind Strike and Scooby-Doo's Maze Chase, for example, bypass it.] SYSTEM RAM Note: Use of the ECS/BASIC features also eats up some of the Master Component's 147 8-bit scratchpad RAM locations normally available to the programmer; from 3 to 14 locations, depending on the features used. CASSETTE RECORDER/PRINTER INTERFACE [The ECS was designed to work with standard audiocassette recorders, and in fact came with a list of current models that it was compatible with, and the same 40-column thermal printer sold both for the original Keyboard Component and the Aquarius system. At the June 1983 CES, the ECS was shown with Aquarius Data Recorders and Printers affixed with "Intellivision" nameplates; they were never actually released with those labels.] INPUT PORTS
The ECS EXEC has routines to decode the key presses from any of these devices for use by the game programs. Note that functionally, the Music Synthesizer is just a keyboard; the "synthesizing" takes place in the Master Component and Computer Adaptor using their two sound chips under the ECS EXEC's control.
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